Andreas Herbert Hoecht

Outsourcing, information leakage and the risk of losing technology based competencies

Purpose – To draw attention to a particular outsourcing risk that has not yet been adequately addressed in the literature, namely information leakage arising from acts of accidental disclosure or even purposeful betrayal by consultants that work for several client firms at the same time.Design/methodology/approach – A review of the literature.Findings – It illustrates how specialist IT service providers are playing pivotal roles in determining the extent to which unique firm specific skills and core competencies are being transferred to the wider industry context (via leakage) and becoming standard practices. It is shown that consultants face a dilemma as they are expected to spread cutting edge level expertise to their respective client firms, yet at the same time honour confidentiality commitments.Research limitations/implications – Conceptual rather than empirical.Practical implications – A management tool is developed for managers to aid decision making.Originality/value – A critique of the outsourcin...

Counterfeit, imitation, reverse engineering and learning: reflections from Chinese manufacturing firms

In a previous paper, we developed an alternative perspective on product imitation and innovation. In this paper, we explore some of our research questions using empirical data gathered in China. While we do not condone counterfeit activities, we explore the role of counterfeiting, imitation and learning from the perspective of Chinese manufacturers and provide insight from a small number of key informants about the motives and incentives for non-consensual acquisition of technology and their views on what Western firms should be doing to counteract the threat to their technological advantage. In this paper, we argue that where companies use the technology property of others to develop their own technology capability without the consent of the other party (non-consensual acquisition of technology), firms should consider whether there are opportunities for collaboration before resorting immediately to the legal tools at their disposal to enforce intellectual property rights and seek financial recompense from infringers without due consideration of the learning, new product development and innovation context. We believe that the findings from our case studies can make a significant contribution towards a better understanding of non-consensual acquisition of technology in an innovation context. In particular, the information gained from the key informants provides their perspective on the causes of non-consensual acquisition of technology and their views and recommendations of how companies affected by this behaviour might be able to better handle this problem.

Segmenting internet banking adopter and non‐adopters in the Turkish retail banking sector

Purpose – This study aims to identify perceptual, experience related, demographic, socio‐economic and situational characteristics of internet banking adopters and non‐adopters. In particular, perceptual differences between IB adopters and non‐adopters are to be examined.Design/methodology/approach – Based on relevant literature and previous research that included interviews with leading internet banking managers in Turkey, a questionnaire was designed. Face‐to‐face questionnaires were distributed to 155 convenience samples of internet users.Findings – There were significant differences between adopters and non‐adopters of the service in terms of their perceptual, experience and consumer related characteristics. Internet banking adopters perceived internet banking use as less risky, more user‐friendly and more useful compared to internet banking non‐adopters. Internet banking non‐adopters who intend to use the service in the future (i.e. later adopters) perceived internet banking use as less risky and more...

Product counterfeiting, non‐consensual acquisition of technology and new product development: An innovation perspective

Purpose – To examine the literature on counterfeit products and explore whether imitation and counterfeit product activities can actually facilitate the development of new products.Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines the dominant school of thought on counterfeit products that characterises it as a significant economic and social problem throughout the world, and develops an alternative school of thought, which focuses on the overlooked benefits of imitation and counterfeit activities. The paper suggests that the concepts of counterfeit and imitation are often misrepresented as powerful lobby groups present their cases.Findings – This paper argues that while some counterfeit firms adopt short‐term profit motives other counterfeit firms demonstrate a longer‐term motive which manifests itself in an ability to reverse engineer, imitate and learn. Such firms may be suitable long‐term partners, in particular for multinational firms with operations in transition economies. Thus, firms face a difficu...

Enterprise resource planning and its impact on the innovative capability of the firm

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business software has become one of the most successful products in the world. Microsoft, ICI, UBS and Procter & Gamble are a few of the firms that have claimed it has changed the way they work (Gartner, 2002). Indeed, substantial claims are made about the softwares capabilities. A complete system could take several years and several hundred million dollars to deploy. SAP, Oracle, Baan and PeopleSoft are the market leaders and SAP has over 20,000 R/3 products installed worldwide; Oracle has installed databases in nearly every one of the worlds top 500 companies. This paper surveys the literature and identifies that there is increasing evidence that firms fail to obtain the benefits of these investments within the anticipated timeframes (Pollock et al., 2003). Moreover, and more worrying for senior managers is the extent to which these fully integrated systems using on-line transactional processing are affecting the firms innovative ability. We argue in this paper that there is a fundamental clash of underlying principles between ERP systems requirements and the success factors of innovative organisations that lie at the heart of the innovation dilemma caused by the introduction of ERP systems into organisations.

New service development: Insights from an explorative study into the Turkish retail banking sector

Summary Technology has become of one the most significant strategic weapons for banks to survive in increasingly competitive bank markets. Today, banks in Turkey are competing aggressively to introduce new types of products and services that are driven mostly by technology. Internet banking is the latest and most innovative technology based service offered by the banks in Turkey. Yet, as users of Internet banking actively participate in the service provision, a customer oriented design according to needs and skills of the various classes of consumers becomes a major necessity to accelerate the diffusion of the service. Against this background, this research examines the role(s) market research and technology play in the development of Internet banking services and how consumers are involved in this process. The key finding of this study is that the banks involved in this research were developing and introducing Internet banking services with very limited scientific market research. Technology had the dominant role in this process. Market research was utilised only after the commercialisation of the service had taken place. The conceptual framework developed for this research identified the three key roles consumers play in the development of Internet banking services. This study contributes to the existing literature by developing an innovative conceptual framework within the context of new service development. The key findings of this study provide implications for the banking industry and future research.

Control in collaborative research and technology development: a case study in the chemical industry

It is widely accepted that companies operating in research‐intensive industries need to pursue an “outward‐looking”, collaborative research and technology development strategy. Research collaboration, however, always carries risks, in particular, the risk of sensitive information leakage, be it as a result of purposeful betrayal by collaborators or accidental disclosure. It has been shown that traditional legal and bureaucratic control mechanisms are not able to deal with this problem adequately and that the more “outward‐looking” the research strategy that a company follows, the more it has to rely on social control mechanisms such as reputational concerns of key researchers and the incremental development of higher levels of trust among individuals. This paper analyses the relationship between management control and social control in collaborative research and development in more detail and introduces the results of a small‐scale interview‐based study of the trust‐building and control processes in fine fragrance research.

How should firms deal with counterfeiting?: A review of the success conditions of anti-counterfeiting strategies

Purpose – The production and sale of counterfeit products is big business in the international economy. Nowhere is this more evident than in China. This paper aims to review the anti-counterfeiting strategies that have been identified in the literature on counterfeiting. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a literature review. Findings – This paper reviews 11 anti-counterfeiting strategies that have been suggested by relevant literature and has identified some of the success conditions. It also finds that firms should seek to take a longer-term view and to protect their technology-based competitive advantage. This is already happening: Japanese blue chip companies have begun to relocate sensitive R&D and high-tech manufacturing away from risky locations and back to Japan. Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that the dominant legal enforcement (perspective) approach has been of limited success and explains the reasons for its failure. Practical implications – The paper...

Whose ethics, whose accountability? A debate about university research ethics committees

Research ethics approval procedures and research ethics committees (RECs) are now well-established in most Western Universities. RECs base their judgements on an ethics code that has been developed by the health and biomedical sciences research community and that is widely considered to be universally valid regardless of discipline. On the other hand, a sizeable body of literature has emerged criticising the work of RECs, as, among other things, overly bureaucratic and unresponsive to the needs of disciplines outside the biomedical sciences. This article adopts the format of a debate between a Chair of a university REC and a social science researcher as a vehicle for contrasting different perspectives on research ethics. The fictional debate allows for a productive discussion between the two sides, incorporating key insights from the recent literature and concludes with a synthesis that sketches out some ideas about how university RECs can be made more responsive and accountable.

Innovation in the Service Sector: Exploring the Adoption of Internet Banking Services in Turkey

The Internet has become the latest technology to be utilised by the banks to attract new customers and develop new markets. Internet banking offers great opportunities for banks to increase their transactions, extend their customer bases and to decrease their operational costs. It also provides some benefits to consumers such as convenience (i.e. time saving), personalization, freedom (i.e. accessibility) and cost advantages. Nonetheless, branch banking still continues to be the dominant channel compared to its technological counterparts. This is true also for consumers in more developed countries. This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study of the development of Internet banking services in Turkey. A qualitative approach formed by a number of interviews with some of the high-ranking bank managers was applied to explore the role of the market research in the development of Internet banking services. The key findings of the study are the management implications of the adoption of Internet banking and the role of new product development in the creation of Internet banking services in Turkey. The most noteworthy finding of the study was that the banks in this study are developing and introducing their services with very limited scientific market research